Monthly Archives: April 2016

Over the last several weeks we have been studying the idea of “Living by Faith”!

We say this as if a person has a choice about “Living by faith”. In reality, a person always lives by faith….the faith they have in what they believe.

Some people SAY they have faith in God or God’s word but they don’t believe that this “faith” requires any action. In other words they DO believe they DON’T have to do anything, therefore, their life shows no difference in their action.

A person’s actions will eventually align with their true belief. If you believe God is real and will judge us, then your life will reflect that.

There are two types of faith that James talks about. Faith with works and faith without works. Which one will save you? That is what we discussed in Sunday’s lesson.

As we live by faith, we run a race that we, ourselves chose to enter. On May 20th, we discussed the need to lay aside our hindrances and sins; and in this sermon preached on May 27th, we discuss the ways in which we are to run that race.

We are to run with endurance. We cannot just give up and quit.

We are to look to Jesus because He is the end of the race for us. We know where we are headed and so we need to keep our eyes focused.

We need to consider Jesus. Looking at His life and what He did, how He lived it and what He went through. With careful consideration of the life of Jesus, we will not grow weary in our race. We will be able to endure.

Sometimes people ask me, “Which is your favorite book of the Bible?” The best answer I can give, is “The one I am currently studying.” With the Psalms, that is no exception.

I have read them, some of them, on many occasions. Everyone knows Psalm 23 or Psalm 150 and even if you haven’t read it, you know that Psalm 119 is the LONGEST psalm and chapter in the Bible. But after having presented lessons on psalms that I normally have not read, I have to say…”I love them”.

Psalm 18 is a longer psalm and it would be easy to read over it quickly but when you stop to see what David is saying, you will notice three things that we can learn from it.

First, we can learn how to praise God. David does such a good job of doing that. The words he uses, like “refuge”; “rock”; “deliverer”; “shield” and the concepts those words convey, help us to offer a more heartfelt praise to the God to whom we owe everything.

Second, we learn that God is the one who deserves the credit for our successes. As men, we tend to take credit for our successes or worse, we credit “good luck”. Yet, as Moses reminds Israel in Dt 8 “it is (God) who gives you the power to get wealth.” While the Psalm deals with David fighting his enemies, we should not think that it has no meaning to us. I would suggest that any obstacle or hindrance to our serving God is an “enemy” and God will help us defeat them-indeed, only God can.

Third, we can learn about good communication. David and God had good communication with each other. A good relationship takes good communication. While it is easy for us to call on the Lord when there is distress in our life, (that is, we talk to God), when it comes time for us to listen to God (that is, read His word), we are suddenly to busy to do so. No relationship in which one person does all the talking, none of the listening, and yet expects the other person to respond is going to be healthy. David called-God heard; God talked- David listened. That is healthy and God will honor that relationship.

I personally enjoyed this psalm and the sermon that was produced from it with the Lord’s help. You can listen to it here.